CHAPTER XVI
AN ADVENTURE
Arnold, for a moment or two, felt himself incapable of speech or movement. Fenella was hanging, a dead weight, upon his arm. The eyes of both of them were riveted upon the hand which stretched into the room.
"There is some one under the couch!" Fenella faltered at last.
He took a step forward.
"Wait," he begged, "—or perhaps you had better go away. I will see who it is."
He moved toward the couch. She strove to hold him back.
"Arnold," she cried, hoarsely, "this is no business of yours! You had better leave me! Groves is here, and the servants. Slip away now, while you have the chance."
He looked at her in amazement.
"Why, Fenella," he exclaimed, "how can you suggest such a thing! Besides," he added, "Groves saw me climb in at the window. He was with me outside."
She wrung her hands.
"I forgot!" she moaned. "Don't move the sofa while I am looking!"
There was a knock at the door. They both turned round. It was Groves' voice speaking. He had returned to the house and was waiting outside.
"Can I come in, madam?"
Fenella moved slowly towards the door and admitted him. Then Arnold, setting his teeth, rolled back the couch. A man was lying there, stretched at full length. His face was colorless except for a great blue bruise near his temple. Arnold stared at him for a moment with horrified eyes.
"My God!" he muttered.
There was a brief silence. Fenella looked across at Arnold.
"You know him!"
Arnold's first attempt at speech failed. When the words came they sounded choked. There was a horrible dry feeling in his throat.
"It is the man who looked in at the window that night," he whispered. "I saw him—only a few hours ago. It is the same man."
Fenella came slowly to his side. She leaned over his shoulder.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
Her tone was cold and unnatural. Her paroxysm of fear seemed to have passed.
"I don't know," Arnold answered. "Let Groves telephone for a doctor."
The man half turned away, yet hesitated. Fenella fell on her knees and bent over the prostrate body.
"He is not dead," she declared. "Groves, tell me exactly who is in the house?"
"There is no one here at all, madam," the man answered, "except the servants, and they are all in the other wing. We have had no callers whatever this evening."
"And Mr. Weatherley?"
"Mr. Weatherley arrived home about seven o'clock," Groves replied, "dined early, and went to bed immediately afterwards. He complained of a headache and looked very unwell."
Fenella rose slowly to her feet. She looked from Arnold to the prostrate figure upon the carpet.
"Who has done this?" she asked, pointing downwards.
"It may have been an accident," Arnold suggested.
"An accident!" she repeated. "What was he doing in my sitting-room? Besides, he could not have crept underneath the couch of his own accord."
"Do you know who it is?" Arnold asked.
"Why should I know?" she demanded.
He hesitated.
"You remember the night of my first visit here—the face at the window?"
She nodded. He pointed downward to the outstretched hand.
"That is the man," he declared. "He is wearing the same ring—the red signet ring. I saw it upon his hand the night you and I were in this room alone together, and he was watching the house. I saw it again through the window of the swing-doors on the hand of the man who killed Rosario. What does it mean, Fenella?"
"I do not know," she faltered.
"You must have some idea," he persisted, "as to who he is. You seemed to expect his coming that night. You would not let me give an alarm or send for the police. It was the same man who killed Rosario."
She shook her head.
"I do not believe that," she declared.
"If it were not the same man," Arnold continued, "it was at least some one who was wearing the same ring. Tell me the truth, Fenella!"
She turned her head. Groves had come once more within hearing.
"I know nothing," she replied, hardly. "Groves, go and knock at the door of your master's room," she added. "Ask him to put on his dressing-gown and come down at once. Mr. Chetwode, come with me into the library while I telephone for the doctor."
Arnold hesitated for a moment.
"Don't you think that I had better stay by him?" he suggested.
She shook her head.
"I will not be left alone," she replied. "I told you on the way here that I was afraid. All the evening I knew that something would happen."
They made their way to the front of the house and into the library. She turned up the electric lights and fetched a telephone book. Arnold rang up the number she showed him.
"What about the police station?" he asked, turning towards her with the receiver still in his hand. "Oughtn't I to send for some one?"
"Not yet," she replied. "We are not supposed to know. The man may have come upon some business. Let us wait and see what the doctor says."
He laid down the receiver. She had thrown herself into an easy-chair and with a little impulsive gesture she held out one hand towards him.
"Poor Arnold!" she murmured. "I am afraid that this is all very bewildering to you, and your life was so peaceful until a week ago."
He held her fingers tightly. Notwithstanding the shadows under her eyes, and the gleam of terror which still lingered there, she was beautiful.
"I don't care about that," he answered, fervently. "I don't care about anything except that I should like to understand a little more clearly what it all means. I hate mysteries. I don't see why you can't tell me. I am your friend. If it is necessary for me to say nothing, I shall say nothing, but I hate the thoughts that come to me sometimes. Tell me, why should that man have been haunting your house the other evening? What did he want? And to-night—what made him break into your room?"
She sighed.
"If it were only so simple as all that," she answered, "oh! I would tell you so willingly. But it is not. There is so much which I do not understand myself."
He leaned a little closer towards her. The silence of the room and the house was unbroken.
"The man will die!" he said. "Who do you believe could have struck him that blow in your room?"
"I do not know," she answered; "indeed I do not."
"You heard what Groves said," Arnold continued. "There is no one in the house except the servants."
"That man was here," she answered. "Why not others? Listen."
There was the sound of shuffling footsteps in the hall. She held up her finger cautiously.
"Be very careful before Mr. Weatherley," she begged. "It is an ordinary burglary, this—no more."
The door was opened. Mr. Weatherley, in hasty and most unbecoming deshabille, bustled in. His scanty gray hair was sticking out in patches all over his head. He seemed, as yet, scarcely awake. With one hand he clutched at the dressing-gown, the girdle of which was trailing behind him.
"What is the meaning of this, Fenella?" he demanded. "Why am I fetched from my room in this manner? You, Chetwode? What are you doing here?"
"I have brought Mrs. Weatherley home, sir," Arnold answered. "We noticed a light in her room and we made a discovery there. It looks as though there has been an attempted burglary within the last hour or so."
"Which room?" Mr. Weatherley asked. "Which room? Is anything missing?"
"Nothing, fortunately," Arnold replied. "The man, by some means or other, seems to have been hurt."
"Where is he?" Mr. Weatherley demanded.
"In my boudoir," Fenella replied. "We will all go. I have telephoned for a doctor."
"A doctor? What for?" Mr. Weatherley inquired. "Who needs a doctor?"
"The burglar, if he is a burglar," she explained, gently. "Don't you understand that all we found was a man, lying in the centre of the room? He has had a fall of some sort."
"God bless my soul!" Mr. Weatherley said. "Well, come along, let's have a look at him."
They trooped down the passage. Groves, waiting outside for them, opened the door. Mr. Weatherley, who was first, looked all around the apartment.
"Where is this man?" he demanded. "Where is he?"
"Where is this man?" he demanded. Page 152.
Arnold, who followed, was stricken speechless. Fenella gave a little cry. The couch had been wheeled back to its place. The body of the man had disappeared!
"Where is the burglar?" Mr. Weatherley repeated, irritably. "Was there ever any one here? Who in the name of mischief left that window open?"
The window through which Arnold had entered the room was now wide open. They hurried towards it. Outside, all was darkness. There was no sound of footsteps, no sign of any person about. Mr. Weatherley was distinctly annoyed.
"I should have thought you would have had more sense, Chetwode," he said, testily. "You found a burglar here, and, instead of securing him properly, you send up to me and go ringing up for doctors, and in the meantime the man calmly slips off through the window."
Arnold made no reply. Mr. Weatherley's words seemed to come from a long way off. He was looking at Fenella.
"The man was dead!" he muttered.
She, too, was white, but she shook her head.
"We thought so," she answered. "We were wrong."
Mr. Weatherley led the way to the front door.
"As the dead man seems to have cleared out," he said, "without taking very much with him, I suggest that we go to bed. Groves had better ring up the doctor and stop him, if he can; if not, he must explain that he was sent for in error. Good night, Chetwode!" he added, pointedly.
Arnold scarcely remembered his farewells. He passed out into the street and stood for several moments upon the pavement. He looked back at the house.
"The man was dead or dying!" he muttered to himself. "What does it all mean?"
He walked slowly away. There was a policeman on the other side of the road, taxicabs and carriages coming and going. He passed the gate of Pelham Lodge and looked back toward the window of the sitting-room. Within five minutes the man must have left that room by the window. That he could have left it unaided, even if alive, was impossible. Yet there was not anything in the avenue, or thereabouts, to denote that anything unusual had occurred. He was on the point of turning away when a sudden thought struck him. He re-entered the gate softly and walked up the drive. Arrived at within a few feet of the window, he paused and turned to the right. A narrow path led him into a shrubbery. A few more yards and he reached a wire fence. Stepping across it, he found himself in the next garden. Here he paused for a moment and listened. The house before which he stood was smaller than Pelham Lodge, and woefully out of repair. The grass on the lawn was long and dank—even the board containing the notice "To Let" had fallen flat, and lay among it as in a jungle. The paths were choked with weeds, the windows were black and curtainless. He made his way to the back of the house and suddenly stopped short. This was a night of adventures, indeed! On a level with the ground, the windows of one of the back rooms were boarded up. Through the chinks he could distinctly see gleams of light. Standing there, holding his breath, he could even hear the murmur of voices. There were men there—several of them, to judge by the sound. He drew nearer and nearer until he found a chink through which he could see. Then, for the first time, he hesitated. It was not his affair, this. There were mysteries connected with Pelham Lodge and its occupants which were surely no concern of his. Why interfere? Danger might come of it—danger and other troubles. Fenella would have told him if she had wished him to know. She herself must have some idea as to the reason of this attempt upon her house. Why not slip away quietly and forget it? It was at least the most prudent course. Then, as he hesitated, the memory of Sabatini's words, so recently spoken, came into his mind. Almost he could see him leaning back in his chair with the faint smile upon his lips. "You have not the spirit for adventure!" Then Arnold hesitated no longer. Choosing every footstep carefully, he crept to the window until he could press his face close to the chink through which the light gleamed out into the garden.
CHAPTER XVII
THE END OF AN EVENING
To see into the room at all, Arnold had been compelled to step down from the grass on to a narrow, tiled path about half a yard wide, which led to the back door. Standing on this and peering through the chink in the boards, he gained at last a view of the interior of the house. From the first, he had entered upon this search with a certain presentiment. He looked into the room and shivered. It was apparently the kitchen, and was unfurnished save for half a dozen rickety chairs, and a deal table in the middle of the room. Upon this was stretched the body of a motionless man. There were three others in the room. One, who appeared to have some knowledge of medicine, had taken off his coat and was listening with his ear against the senseless man's heart. A brandy bottle stood upon the table. They had evidently been doing what they could to restore him to consciousness. Terrible though the sight was, Arnold found something else in that little room to kindle his emotion. Two of the men were unknown to him—dark-complexioned, ordinary middle-class people; but the third he recognized with a start. It was Isaac who stood there, a little aloof, waiting somberly for what his companion's verdict might be.
Apparently, after a time, they gave up all hope of the still motionless man. They talked together, glancing now and then towards his body. The window was open at the top and Arnold could sometimes hear a word. With great difficulty, he gathered that they were proposing to remove him, and that they were taking the back way. Presently he saw them lift the body down and wrap it in an overcoat. Then Arnold stole away across the lawn toward a gate in the wall. It was locked, but it was easy for him to climb over. He had barely done so when he saw the three men come out of the back of the house, carrying their wounded comrade. He waited till he was sure they were coming, and then looked around for a hiding-place. He was now in a sort of lane, ending in a cul de sac at the back of Mr. Weatherley's house. There were gardens on one side, parallel with the one through which he had just passed, and opposite were stables, motor sheds and tool houses. He slipped a little way down the lane and concealed himself behind a load of wood. About forty yards away was a street, for which he imagined that they would probably make. He held his breath and waited.
In a few minutes he saw the door in the wall open. One of the men slipped out and looked up and down. He apparently signaled that the coast was clear, and soon the others followed him. They came down the lane, walking very slowly—a weird and uncanny little procession. Arnold caught a glimpse of them as they passed. The two larger men were supporting their fallen companion between them, each with an arm under his armpits, so that the fact that he was really being carried was barely noticeable. Isaac came behind, his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pocket, a cloth cap drawn over his features. So they went on to the end of the lane. As soon as they had reached it, Arnold followed them swiftly. When he gained the street, they were about twenty yards to the right, looking around them. It was a fairly populous neighborhood, with a row of villas on the other side of the road, and a few shops lower down. They stood there, having carefully chosen a place remote from the gas lamps, until at last a taxicab came crawling by. They hailed it, and Isaac engaged the driver's attention apparently with some complicated direction, while the others lifted their burden into the taxicab. One man got in with him. Isaac and the other, with ordinary good-nights, strode away. The taxicab turned around and headed westward. Arnold, with a long breath, watched them all disappear. Then he, too, turned homewards.
It was almost midnight when Arnold was shown once more into the presence of Sabatini. Sabatini, in a black velvet smoking jacket, was lying upon a sofa in his library, with a recently published edition de luxe of Alfred de Musset's poems upon his knee. He looked up with some surprise at Arnold's entrance.
"Why, it is my strenuous young friend again!" he declared. "Have you brought me a message from Fenella?"
Arnold shook his head.
"She does not know that I have come."
"You have brought me some news on your own account, then?"
"I have brought you some news," Arnold admitted.
Sabatini looked at him critically.
"You look terrified," he remarked. "What have you been doing? Help yourself to a drink. You'll find everything on the sideboard there."
Arnold laid down his hat and mixed himself a whiskey and soda. He drank it off before he spoke.
"Count Sabatini," he said, turning round, "I suppose you are used to all this excitement. A man's life or death is little to you. I have never seen a dead man before to-night. It has upset me."
"Naturally, naturally," Sabatini said, tolerantly. "I remember the first man I killed—it was in a fair fight, too, but it sickened me. But what have you been doing, my young friend, to see dead men? Have you, too, been joining the army of plunderers?"
Arnold shook his head.
"I took your sister home," he announced. "We found a light in her sitting-room and the door locked. I got in through the window."
"This is most interesting," Sabatini declared, carefully marking the place in his book and laying it aside. "What did you find there?"
"A dead man," Arnold answered, "a murdered man!"
"You are joking!" Sabatini protested.
"He had been struck on the forehead," Arnold continued, "and dragged half under the couch. Only his arm was visible at first. We had to move the couch to discover him."
"Do you know who he was?" Sabatini asked.
"No one had any idea," Arnold answered. "I think that I was the only one who had ever seen him before. The night I dined at Mr. Weatherley's for the first time and met you, I was with Mrs. Weatherley in her room, and I saw that man steal up to the window as though he were going to break in."
"This is most interesting," Sabatini declared. "Evidently a dangerous customer. But you say that you found him dead. Who killed him?"
"There was no one there who could say," Arnold declared. "There were no servants in that part of the house, there had been no visitors, and Mr. Weatherley had been in bed since half-past nine. We telephoned for a doctor, and we fetched Mr. Weatherley out of bed. Then a strange thing happened. We took Mr. Weatherley to the room, which we had left for less than five minutes, and there was no one there. The man had been carried away."
"Really," Sabatini protested, "your story gets more interesting every moment. Don't tell me that this is the end!"
"It is not," Arnold replied. "It seemed then as though there were nothing more to be done. Evidently he had either been only stunned and had got up and left the room by the window, or he had accomplices who had fetched him away. Mr. Weatherley was very much annoyed with us and we had to make excuses to the doctor. Then I left."
"Well?" Sabatini said. "You left. You didn't come straight here?"
Arnold shook his head.
"When I got into the road, I could see that there was a policeman on duty on the other side of the way, and quite a number of people moving backwards and forwards all the time. It seemed impossible that they could have brought him out there if he had been fetched away. Something made me remember what I had noticed on the evening I had dined there—that there was a small empty house next door. I walked back up the drive of Pelham Lodge, turned into the shrubbery, and there I found that there was an easy way into the next garden. I made my way to the back of the house. I saw lights in the kitchen. There were three of his companions there, and the dead man. They were trying to see if they could revive him. I looked through a chink in the boarded window and I saw everything."
"Trying to revive him," Sabatini remarked. "Evidently there was some doubt as to his being dead, then."
"I think they had come to the conclusion that he was dead," Arnold replied; "for after a time they put on his overcoat and dragged him out by the back entrance, down some mews, into another street. I followed them at a distance. They hailed a taxi. One man got in with him and drove away, the others disappeared. I came here."
Sabatini reached out his hand for a cigarette.
"I have seldom," he declared, "listened to a more interesting episode. You didn't happen to hear the direction given to the driver of the taxicab?"
"I did not."
"You have no idea, I suppose," Sabatini asked, with a sudden keen glance, "as to the identity of the man whom you believe to be dead?"
"None whatever," Arnold replied, "except that it was the same man who was watching the house on the night when I dined there. He told me then that he wanted Rosario. There was something evil in his face when he mentioned the name. I saw his hand grasping the window-sill. He was wearing a ring—a signet ring with a blood-red stone."
"This is most engrossing," Sabatini murmured. "A signet ring with a blood-red stone! Wasn't there a ring answering to that description upon the finger of the man who stabbed Rosario?"
"There was," Arnold answered.
Sabatini knocked the ash from his cigarette.
"The coincidence," he remarked, "if it is a coincidence, is a little extraordinary. By the bye, though, you have as yet given me no explanation as to your visit here. Why do you connect me with this adventure of yours?"
"I do not connect you with it at all," Arnold answered; "yet, for some reason or other, I am sure that your sister knew more about this man and his presence in her sitting-room than she cared to confess. When I left there, everything was in confusion. I have come to tell you the final result, so far as I know it. You will tell her what you choose. What she knows, I suppose you know. I don't ask for your confidence. I have had enough of these horrors. Tooley Street is bad enough, but I think I would rather sit in my office and add up figures all day long, than go through another such night."
Sabatini smiled.
"You are young, as yet," he said. "Life and death seem such terrible things to you, such tragedies, such enormous happenings. In youth, one loses one's sense of proportion. Life seems so vital, the universe so empty, without one's own personality. Take a pocketful of cigarettes, my dear Mr. Chetwode, and make your way homeward. We shall meet again in a day or two, I dare say, and by that time your little nightmare will not seem so terrible."
"You will let your sister know?" Arnold begged.
"She shall know all that you have told me," Sabatini promised. "I do not say that it will interest her—it may or it may not. In any case, I thank you for coming."
Arnold was dismissed with a pleasant nod, and passed out into the streets, now emptying fast. He walked slowly back to his rooms. Already the sense of unwonted excitement was passing. Sabatini's strong, calm personality was like a wonderful antidote. After all, it was not his affair. It was possible, after all, that the man was an ordinary burglar. And yet, if so, what was Isaac doing with him? He glanced in front of him to where the lights of the two great hotels flared up to the sky. Somewhere just short of them, before the window of her room, Ruth would be sitting watching. He quickened his steps. Perhaps he should find her before he went to bed. Perhaps he might even see Isaac come in!
Big Ben was striking the half-hour past midnight as Arnold stood on the top landing of the house at the corner of Adam Street, and listened. To the right was his own bare apartment; on the left, the rooms where Isaac and Ruth lived together. He struck a match and looked into his own apartment. There was a note twisted up for him on his table, scribbled in pencil on a half sheet of paper. He opened it and read:
If you are not too late, will you knock at the door and wish me good night? Isaac will be late. Perhaps he will not be home at all.
He stepped back and knocked softly at the opposite door. In a moment or two he heard the sound of her stick. She opened the door and came out. Her eyes shone through the darkness at him but her face was white and strained. He shook his head.
"Ruth," he said, "you heard the time? And you promised to go to bed at ten o'clock!"
She smiled. He passed his arm around her, holding her up.
"To-night I was afraid," she whispered. "I do not know what it was but there seemed to be strange voices about everywhere. I was afraid for Isaac and afraid for you."
"My dear girl," he laughed, "what was there to fear for me? I had a very good dinner with a very charming man. Afterwards, we went to a music-hall for a short time, I went back to his rooms, and here I am, just in time to wish you good night. What could the voices have to tell you about that?"
She shook her head.
"Sometimes," she said, "there is danger in the simplest things one does. I don't understand what it is," she went on, a little wearily, "but I feel that I am losing you, you are slipping away, and day by day Isaac gets more mysterious, and when he comes home sometimes his face is like the face of a wolf. There is a new desire born in him, and I am afraid. I think that if I am left alone here many more nights like this, I shall go mad. I tried to undress, Arnie, but I couldn't. I threw myself down on the bed and I had to bite my handkerchief. I have been trembling. Oh, if you could hear those voices! If you could understand the fears that are nameless, how terrible they are!"
She was shaking all over. He passed his other arm around her and lifted her up.
"Come and sit with me in my room for a little time," he said. "I will carry you back presently."
She kissed him on the forehead.
"Dear Arnold!" she whispered. "For a few minutes, then—not too long. To-night I am afraid. Always I feel that something will happen. Tell me this?"
"What is it, dear?"
"Why should Isaac press me so hard to tell him where you were going to-night? You passed him on the stairs, didn't you?"
Arnold nodded.
"He was with another man," he said, with a little shiver. "Did that man come up to his rooms?"
"They both came in together," Ruth said. "They talked in a corner for some time. The man who was with Isaac seemed terrified about something. Then Isaac came over to me and asked about you."
"What did you tell him?" Arnold asked.
"I thought it best to know nothing at all," she replied. "I simply said that you were going to have dinner with some of your new friends."
"Does he know who they are?"
Ruth nodded.
"Yes, we have spoken of that together," she admitted. "I had to tell him of your good fortune. He knows how well you have been getting on with Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley. Listen!—is that some one coming?"
He turned around with her still in his arms, and started so violently that if her fingers had not been locked behind his neck he must have dropped her. Within a few feet of them was Isaac. He had come up those five flights of stone steps without making a sound. Even in that first second or two of amazement, Arnold noticed that he was wearing canvas shoes with rubber soles. He stood with his long fingers gripping the worn balustrade, only two steps below them, and his face was like the face of some snarling animal.
"Ruth," he demanded, hoarsely, "what are you doing out here at this time of night—with him?"
She slipped from Arnold's arms and leaned on her stick. To all appearance, she was the least discomposed of the three.
"Isaac," she answered, "Uncle Isaac, I was lonely—lonely and terrified. You left me so strangely, and it is so silent up here. I left a little note and asked Arnold, when he came home, to bid me good night. He knocked at my door two minutes ago."
Isaac threw open the door of their apartments.
"Get in," he ordered. "I'll have an end put to it, Ruth. Look at him!" he cried, mockingly, pointing to Arnold's evening clothes. "What sort of a friend is that, do you think, for us? He wears the fetters of his class. He is a hanger-on at the tables of our enemies."
"You can abuse me as much as you like," Arnold replied, calmly, "and I shall still believe that I am an honest man. Are you, Isaac?"
Isaac's eyes flashed venom.
"Honesty! What is honesty?" he snarled. "What is it, I ask you? Is the millionaire honest who keeps the laws because he has no call to break them? Is that honesty? Is he a better man than the father who steals to feed his hungry children? Is the one honest and the other a thief? You smug hypocrite!"
Arnold was silent for a moment. It flashed into his mind that here, from the other side, came very nearly the same doctrine as Sabatini had preached to him across his rose-shaded dining table.
"It is too late to argue with you, Isaac," he said, pleasantly. "Besides, I think that you and I are too far apart. But you must leave me Ruth for my little friend. She would be lonely without me, and I can do her no harm."
Isaac opened his lips,—lips that were set in an ugly sneer—but he met the steady fire of Arnold's eyes, and the words he would have spoken remained unsaid.
"Get to your room, then," he ordered.
He passed on as though to enter his own apartments. Then suddenly he stopped and listened. There was the sound of a footstep, a heavy, marching footstep, coming along the Terrace below. With another look now upon his face, he slunk to the window and peered down. The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and Arnold could hear him breathing like a hunted animal. Then they passed, and he stood up, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"I have been hurrying," he muttered, half apologetically. "We had a crowded meeting. Good night!"
He turned into his rooms and closed the door. Arnold looked after him for a moment and then up the street below. When he turned into his own rooms, he was little enough inclined for sleep. He drew up his battered chair to the window, threw it open, and sat looking out. The bridge and the river were alike silent now. The sky signs had gone, the murky darkness blotted out the whole scene, against which the curving arc of lights shone with a fitful, ghostly light. For a moment his fancy served him an evil trick. He saw the barge with the blood-red sails. A cargo of evil beings thronged its side. He saw their faces leering at him. Sabatini was there, standing at the helm, calm and scornful. There was the dead man and Isaac, Groves the butler, Fenella herself—pale as death, her hands clasping at her bosom as though in pain. Arnold turned, shivering, away; his head sank into his hands. It seemed to him that poison had crept into those dreams.
CHAPTER XVIII
DISCUSSING THE MYSTERY
At precisely half-past nine the next morning, Mr. Weatherley entered his office in Tooley Street. His appearance, as he passed through the outer office, gave rise to some comment.
"The governor looks quite himself again," young Tidey remarked, turning round on his stool.
Mr. Jarvis, who was collecting the letters, nodded.
"It's many months since I've heard him come in whistling," he declared.
Arnold, in the outer office, received his chief's morning salutation with some surprise. Mr. Weatherley was certainly, to all appearance, in excellent spirits.
"Glad to see your late hours don't make any difference in the morning, Chetwode," he said, pleasantly. "You seem to be seeing quite a good deal of the wife, eh?"
Arnold was almost dumbfounded. Any reference to the events of the preceding evening was, for the moment, beyond him. Mr. Weatherley calmly hung up his silk hat, took out the violets from the button-hole of his overcoat and carried them to his desk.
"Come along, Jarvis," he invited, as the latter entered with a rustling heap of correspondence. "We'll sort the letters as quickly as possible this morning. You come on the other side, Chetwode, and catch hold of those which we keep to deal with together. Those Mr. Jarvis can handle, I'll just initial. Let me see—you're sure those bills of lading are in order, Jarvis?"
Mr. Jarvis plunged into a few particulars, to which his chief listened with keen attention. For half an hour or so they worked without a pause. Mr. Weatherley was quite at his best. His instructions were sage, and his grasp of every detail referred to in the various letters was lucid and complete. When at last Mr. Jarvis left with his pile, he did not hesitate to spread the good news. Mr. Weatherley had got over his fit of depression, from whatever cause it had arisen; a misunderstanding with his wife, perhaps, or a certain amount of weariness entailed by his new manner of living. At all events, something had happened to set matters right. Mr. Jarvis was quite fluent upon the subject, and every one started his day's work with renewed energy.
Mr. Weatherley's energy did not evaporate with the departure of his confidential clerk. He motioned Arnold to a chair, and for another three-quarters of an hour he dictated replies to the letters which he had sorted out for personal supervision. When at last this was done, he leaned back in his seat, fetched out a box of cigars, carefully selected one and lit it.
"Now you had better get over to your corner and grind that lot out, Chetwode," he said pleasantly. "How are you getting on with the typing, eh?"
"I am getting quicker," Arnold replied, still wondering whether the whole events of last week had not been a dream. "I think, with a little more practice, I shall be able to go quite fast enough."
"Just so," his employer assented. "By the bye, is it my fancy, or weren't you reading the newspaper when I came in? No time for newspapers, you know, after nine o'clock."
Arnold rose to his feet. This was more than he could bear!
"I am sorry if I seemed inattentive, sir," he said. "Under the circumstances, I could not help dwelling a little over this paragraph. Perhaps you will look at it yourself, sir?"
He brought it over to the desk. Mr. Weatherley put on his spectacles with great care and drew the paper towards him.
"Hm!" he ejaculated. "My eyesight isn't so good as it was, Chetwode, and your beastly ha'penny papers have such small print. Read it out to me—read it out to me while I smoke."
He leaned back in his padded chair, his hands folded in front of him, his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Arnold smoothed the paper out and read:
TERRIBLE DEATH OF AN UNKNOWN MAN.
FOUND DEAD IN A TAXICAB.
Early this morning, a taxicab driver entered the police station at Finchley Road North, and alleged that a passenger whom he had picked up some short time before, was dead. Inspector Challis, who was on duty at the time, hastened out to the vehicle and found that the driver's statement was apparently true. The deceased was carried into the police station and a doctor was sent for. The chauffeur's statement was that about midnight he was hailed in the Grove End Road, Hampstead, by four men, one of whom, evidently the deceased, he imagined to be the worse for drink. Two of them entered the taxicab, and one of the others directed him to drive to Finchley. After some distance, however, the driver happened to glance inside, and saw that only one of his passengers was there. He at once stopped the vehicle, looked in at the window, and, finding that the man was unconscious, drove on to the police station.
Later information seems to point to foul play, and there is no doubt whatever that an outrage has been committed. There was a wound upon the deceased's forehead, which the doctor pronounces as the cause of death, and which had evidently been dealt within the last hour or so with some blunt instrument. The taxicab driver has been detained, and a full description of the murdered man's companions has been issued to the police. It is understood that nothing was found upon the deceased likely to help towards his identification.
Arnold looked up as he finished. Mr. Weatherley was still smoking. He seemed, indeed, very little disturbed.
"A sensational story, that, Chetwode," he remarked. "You're not supposing, are you, that it was the same man who broke into my house last night?"
"I know that it was, sir," Arnold replied.
"You know that it was," Mr. Weatherley repeated, slowly. "Come, what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that after I left your house last night, sir," Arnold explained, "I realized the impossibility of that man having been carried down your drive and out into the road, with a policeman on duty directly opposite, and a cabstand within a few yards. I happened to remember that there was an empty house next door, and it struck me that it might be worth while examining the premises."
Mr. Weatherley withdrew the cigar from his mouth.
"You did that, eh?"
"I did," Arnold admitted. "I made my way to the back, and I found a light in the room which presumably had been the kitchen. From a chink in the boarded-up window I saw several men in the room, including the man whom we discovered in your wife's boudoir, and who had been spirited away. He was lying motionless upon the table, and one of the others was apparently trying to restore him. When they found that it was useless, they took him off with them by the back way into Grove Lane. I saw two of them enter a taxicab and the other two make off."
"And what did you do then?" Mr. Weatherley asked.
"I went and told Count Sabatini what I had seen," Arnold replied.
"And after that?"
"I went home."
"You told no one else but Count Sabatini?" Mr. Weatherley persisted.
"No one," Arnold answered. "I bought a paper on my way to business this morning, and read what I have just read to you."
"You haven't been rushing about ringing up to give information, or anything of that sort?"
"I have done nothing," Arnold asserted. "I waited to lay the matter before you."
Mr. Weatherley knocked the ash from his cigar, and, discovering that it was out, carefully relit it.
"Chetwode," he said, "I have advanced you from something a little better than an office-boy, very rapidly, because it seemed to me that you had qualities. The time has arrived to test them. The secret of success in life is minding your own business. I am going to ask you to mind your own business in this matter."
"You mean," Arnold asked, "that you do not wish me to give any information, to say anything about last night?"
"I do not wish my name, or the name of my wife, or the name of my house, to be associated with this affair at all," Mr. Weatherley replied. "Mrs. Weatherley would be very much upset and it is, besides, entirely unnecessary."
Arnold hesitated for a moment.
"It is a serious matter, sir, if you will permit me to say so," he said slowly. "The man was murdered—that seems to be clear—and, from what you and I know, it certainly seems that he was murdered in your house."
Mr. Weatherley shook his head.
"That is not my impression," he declared. "The man was found dead in Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, but there was no one in the house or apparently within reach who was either likely to have committed such a crime, or who even could possibly have done so. On the other hand, there are this man's companions, desperate fellows, no doubt, within fifty yards all the time. My own impression is that he was killed first and then placed in the spot where he was found. However that may be, I don't want my house made the rendezvous of all the interviewers and sightseers in the neighborhood. You and I will keep our counsel, Arnold Chetwode."
"Might I ask," Arnold said, "if you knew this man—if you had ever come into contact with him or seen him before?"
"Certainly not," Mr. Weatherley replied. "What business could I possibly have with a person of that description? He seems to have been, if not an habitual criminal himself, at least an associate of criminals, and he was without doubt a foreigner. Between you and me, Chetwode, I haven't the least doubt that the fellow was one of a gang of the worst class of burglars. Wherever he got that blow from, it was probably no more than he deserved."
"But, Mr. Weatherley," Arnold protested, "don't you think that you ought to have an investigation among your household?"
"My dear young fellow," Mr. Weatherley answered, testily, "I keep no men-servants at all except old Groves, who's as meek-spirited as a baby, and a footman whom my wife has just engaged, and who was out for the evening. A blow such as the paper describes was certainly never struck by a woman, and there was just as certainly no other man in my house. There is nothing to inquire about. As a matter of fact, I am not curious. The man is dead and there's an end of it."
"You will bear in mind, sir," Arnold said, "that if it comes to light afterwards, as it very probably may, that the man was first discovered in Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, the scandal and gossip will be a great deal worse than if you came forward and told the whole truth now."
"I take my risk of that," Mr. Weatherley replied, coolly. "There isn't a soul except Groves who saw him, and Groves is my man. Now be so good as to get on with those letters, Chetwode, and consider the incident closed."
Arnold withdrew to his typewriter and commenced his task. The day had commenced with a new surprise to him. The nervous, shattered Mr. Weatherley of yesterday was gone. After a happening in his house which might well have had a serious effect upon him, he seemed not only unmoved but absolutely restored to cheerfulness. He was reading the paper for himself now, and the room was rapidly becoming full of tobacco smoke. Arnold spelled out his letters one by one until the last was finished. Then he took them over to his employer to sign. One by one Mr. Weatherley read them through, made an alteration here and there, then signed them with his large, sprawling hand. Just as he had finished the last, the telephone by his side rang. He took the receiver and placed it to his ear. Arnold waited until he had finished. Mr. Weatherley himself said little. He seemed to be listening. Towards the end, he nodded slightly.
"Yes, I quite understand," he said, "quite. That was entirely my own opinion. No case at all, you say? Good!"
He replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair. For the first time, when he spoke his voice was a little hoarse.
"Chetwode," he said, "ring up my house—16, Post Office, Hampstead. Ask Groves to tell his mistress that I thought she might be interested to hear that Mr. Starling will be discharged this morning. The police are abandoning the case against him, at present, for lack of evidence."
Arnold stood for a moment quite still. Then he took up the receiver and obeyed his orders. Groves' voice was as quiet and respectful as ever. He departed with the message and Arnold rang off. Then he turned to Mr. Weatherley.
"Have you any objection to my ringing up some one else and telling him, too?" he asked.
"You are like all of them," he remarked. "I suppose you think he's a sort of demigod. I never knew a young man yet that he couldn't twist round his little finger. You want to ring up Count Sabatini, I suppose?"
"I should like to," Arnold admitted.
"Very well, go on," Mr. Weatherley grumbled. "Let him know. Perhaps it will be as well."
Arnold took from his pocket the note which Sabatini had written to him, and which contained his telephone number. Then he rang up. The call was answered by his valet.
"In one moment, sir," he said. "The telephone rings into His Excellency's bedchamber. He shall speak to you himself."
A minute or two passed. Then the slow, musical voice of Sabatini intervened.
"Who is that speaking?"
"It is I—Arnold Chetwode," Arnold answered. "I am speaking from the office in the city. I heard some news a few minutes ago which I thought might interest you."
"Good!" Sabatini replied, stifling what seemed to be a yawn. "You have awakened me from a long sleep, so let your news be good, my young friend."
"Mr. Weatherley hears from a solicitor at Bow Street that the police have abandoned the charge against Mr. Starling," Arnold announced. "He will be set at liberty as soon as the court opens."
There was a moment's silence. It was as though the person at the other end had gone away.
"Did you hear?" Arnold asked.
"Yes, I heard," Sabatini answered. "I am very much obliged to you for ringing me up, my young friend. I quite expected to hear your news during the day. No one would really suppose that a respectable man like Starling would be guilty of such a ridiculous action. However, it is pleasant to know. I thank you. I take my coffee and rolls this morning with more appetite."
Arnold set down the telephone. Mr. Weatherley, had risen to his feet and walked as far as the window. On his way back to his place, he looked at the little safe which he had made over to his secretary.
"You've got my papers there all right, Chetwode?" he asked.
"Certainly, sir," Arnold answered. "I hope, however, we may never need to use them."
Mr. Weatherley smiled. He was busy choosing another cigar.